Won't this be interesting (Solar Eclipse and GT power)

California’s sun will go dark
Aug. 21. And when the moon crosses the sun, California’s solar power
grid will slowly, quietly, stop working.

State
energy officials are warning residents to click off all lights they
don’t need and unplug all electrical appliances when 62 percent of the
sun disappears over Los Angeles during a partial solar eclipse that is expected that day.

Nobody is warning of blackouts. But then again, nobody knows what will happen.

"When
the sun goes away, so does the energy that powers our renewable solar
panels. If millions of Californians turn off appliances and power strips
to unplug from the grid during the eclipse, we can let our hard-working
sun take a break,” said Michael Picker, president of the California Public Utilities Commission.

The
California Public Utilities Commission has branded the upcoming eclipse
as not just a solar eclipse but the “Great Solar Eclipse.”

It’s
only a partial eclipse that will travel across California from about
9:02 a.m. until 11:54 a.m. Pacific time. But still, it will be
significant because of the solar energy that the state’s energy grid
will lose.

A California
Public Utilities Commission statement said the sun was expected to be
obscured from 76 percent in Northern California to 62 percent in
Southern California, “and this reduction in solar radiation will
directly affect the output of both large-scale photovoltaic (PV)
electric power plants and rooftop solar.”

“Nearly
10,000 MWs of commercially operational grid-connected solar PV is
currently operated by California's investor-owned utilities, and more
will soon be completed,” the CPUC statement said. “Initial estimates
show at the eclipse peak, commercial solar production for the
investor-owned utilities will be reduced from an estimated 8,754 MWs to
3,143 MWs at the maximum partial eclipse and then return to 9,046 MWs.”

“The
normal morning solar ramp will be interrupted with a down ramp
beginning at 9:02 a.m. followed by a greatly accentuated up ramp
beginning at 10:22 a.m. until noon,” the CPUC statement added.

California
is not expected to experience another eclipse of this magnitude until
2045. But more importantly, an eclipse like this has never happened
while California has depended so much on solar power.

I am not sure I understand or agree that these numbers are accurate (loads, generation, solar/RE generation), but there is a lot of information here. Will be interesting to click here on August 21st and see what happens:

It appears that we have a 26 GW load and a peak of near 10GW of solar on a sunny day.

At least from the numbers, we have enough natural gas fired plants (>~35GW) to run normal loads even if everything else went "dark". But, has the fine print says: “Installed
capacity” refers to the total amount of generation capacity, but does
not reflect the total generation available for dispatch at any given
time.
​

California’s sun will go dark
Aug. 21. And when the moon crosses the sun, California’s solar power
grid will slowly, quietly, stop working.

State
energy officials are warning residents to click off all lights they
don’t need and unplug all electrical appliances when 62 percent of the
sun disappears over Los Angeles during a partial solar eclipse that is expected that day.

Nobody is warning of blackouts. But then again, nobody knows what will happen.

"When
the sun goes away, so does the energy that powers our renewable solar
panels. If millions of Californians turn off appliances and power strips
to unplug from the grid during the eclipse, we can let our hard-working
sun take a break,” said Michael Picker, president of the California Public Utilities Commission.

The
California Public Utilities Commission has branded the upcoming eclipse
as not just a solar eclipse but the “Great Solar Eclipse.”

It’s
only a partial eclipse that will travel across California from about
9:02 a.m. until 11:54 a.m. Pacific time. But still, it will be
significant because of the solar energy that the state’s energy grid
will lose.

A California
Public Utilities Commission statement said the sun was expected to be
obscured from 76 percent in Northern California to 62 percent in
Southern California, “and this reduction in solar radiation will
directly affect the output of both large-scale photovoltaic (PV)
electric power plants and rooftop solar.”

“Nearly
10,000 MWs of commercially operational grid-connected solar PV is
currently operated by California's investor-owned utilities, and more
will soon be completed,” the CPUC statement said. “Initial estimates
show at the eclipse peak, commercial solar production for the
investor-owned utilities will be reduced from an estimated 8,754 MWs to
3,143 MWs at the maximum partial eclipse and then return to 9,046 MWs.”

“The
normal morning solar ramp will be interrupted with a down ramp
beginning at 9:02 a.m. followed by a greatly accentuated up ramp
beginning at 10:22 a.m. until noon,” the CPUC statement added.

California
is not expected to experience another eclipse of this magnitude until
2045. But more importantly, an eclipse like this has never happened
while California has depended so much on solar power.

....

Oh boy...

-Bill

Very appropriate that it's in the scams section. Reminds me of the Y2K doomsayers or the 2012 end of the world conspiracy. I bet California is still the same after the eclipse as it was before it.Anyone want to place a bet?

Dang we are going to be in Prince Edward Island for a wedding so will miss the event...... will just have to watch the riots etc on the TV... I can hear it now ... ''the sky is falling, the sun is dying, ....''

Looking at the maps, the path of total eclipse goes through northern Oregon, and doesn't really come that close to California. But there will be several hours of diminished sun everywhere in the continental U.S. -- we all get a partial eclipse, of varying intensity and duration.

Nice that Texas does not share the grid with other states. I always thought that was very smart! Below me in the central valley it is close to $.20/kWh baseline and $.40 for the next tier. After that you are a high user and pay a fee for that. So if you use cooling, and they have to down there, you get to really pay some denaro!

To help support California and San Mateo County in our energy reduction efforts, please curb your electricity consumption during the solar eclipse on Monday, Aug. 21, 2017.
If we all use less, California can avoid buying supplementary electricity generated by fossil fuels, which generate more GHG emissions, while the state’s solar energy production is affected by the eclipse.
Please follow these tips to curb your electricity consumption between 9 a.m. and noon on Monday, August 21st, 2017:
• Avoid printing, copying, and scanning when possible.
• Take advantage of natural daylight and turn off the lights.
• Do not run the dishwasher and washing machine/dryer between 9 a.m. & noon.
• Turn off unused computers and monitors.
• Take the stairs – use your body’s energy instead of electricity to power an elevator.
• Turn off the air conditioner.
• Close the windows and blinds to shade your home and office to maintain a more comfortable temperature inside.
• Unplug items that are not in use. It takes energy to power the microwave, heat water, make coffee, etc.
• Limit the use of personal electronics (for example, fans, space heating, cell phone charging, clocks, hot water heaters, etc.).
• If you need to charge batteries or battery-operated equipment, do so before 9 a.m. or after noon.

Big non issue IMO , those with logging capabilities should record the event, in the interest of science and post the results. That would be really interesting, less than 3 minutes total shadow, perhaps 30 minutes of interruption would be like a cloudy day, but what if it is a cloudy day.....double jeapody?

It is Obamas fault and all the presidents before and congress creeps who have ignored hardening the grid to even a basic level. Probably a fault also is the tax payers, who don't vote and the ones who are ignorant that do. Cheery thoughts

It is Obamas fault and all the presidents before and congress creeps who have ignored hardening the grid to even a basic level. Probably a fault also is the tax payers, who don't vote and the ones who are ignorant that do. Cheery thoughts

Well, not to bad is not going to cut it when and if it happens. The part that I thought was interesting is that it takes over a year to make the large transformers that connect the different parts of the grid. The speaker said there were 5 spares for over 4,000 transformers. The large class X solar flare in 1859 melted telegraph wiring and wooden rail ties began to burn. Not much hope for the forum here

I apologize Bill for bringing this up again but I think the other 7 people who have done this before me have moved on! Friday!

What Damage Could Be Caused by a Massive Solar Storm?

An enormous solar storm could short out telecom satellites, radio communications, and power grids, leading to trillions of dollars in damages, experts say

On Wednesday, NASA released an image of a series of enormous sunspots snapped by at the Solar Dynamics Observatory, an orbiting telescope. The sunspots—the dark spots in the center of the image—are estimated to be larger in diameter than six Earths placed next to each other.

These sunspots pose no inherent danger—they’re merely temporary areas of intense magnetic activity that inhibit the sun’s normal convection currents—but, on occasion, the unstable area around a sunspot can trigger an unusually large solar flare (below), flinging streams of radiation outward from the sun. And a big enough solar flare can lead to an alteration in solar wind significant enough to set off a geomagnetic storm here on Earth, with the potential to short the circuitry on satellites and disrupt our telecommunications infrastructure worldwide.

To be clear, such a scenario seems unlikely to occur from this current set of sunspots—SpaceWeather.com indicates there is just a 15% chance of X-class flares at the moment, the minimum level necessary to knock out satellites and ground-based communications technologies. But we decided to take this opportunity to imagine just how far-reaching the effects of a massive solar flare would be in today’s ultra-connected world.